lewisb13

This is what I wrote as another post. Please please do not put any more threads in here about how you are converting your cobalt to burn E85. You are ignorant.

You guys are retarted. Lets do a little science here. Gasoline under STP burns at 14.7 parts air to 1 part gasoline. E85 burns at ~7 parts air to 1 part E85. So yes you get higher octane, but you are using twice as much. So take your $1.40 cent gas and multiply that by 2 right off the bat, then when you're done with that AND you're done trying to justify that the higher octane rating of E85 will net you higher MPG and realize you just fucked up, come talk to me. :-)

Let me ask you something, if E85 was even slightly better, and I mean even a **** hair better than gasoline, why does every car on the road not run E85? With the car companies about to be assassinated, you seriously believe they would....nevermind, Im not even going to bring that up, please refer to my first statement.

E85 was not meant to increase gas mileage, or be cheaper, or blah blah blah. It was meant to be a replacement for gasoline or to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, for when petro runs out, and a shitty one at that

originaladrian

agreed E85 is a scam!

THRcobalt07

Well said

brickerenator

oh heh

shabodah

Sounds like you guys need to take a chemistry class or two.

There is a lot of ignorance in the other e85 threads, but there is just as much here.

E85 can work as a very good fuel, and not just because of its octane rating.

E85 vehicles are sold at a MUCH higher rate in many other countries, in fact, every Saab sold outside the US is flex fuel compatable.

originaladrian

let me see if i can put this simply, the real reason why auto makers are pumping out these e85 vehicles and hyping them so much.

they get a tax credit and huge tax breaks if they produce cars that can run on ANY alternative fuel, dosnt matter wht tht fuel is, (even if its doing more harm than good and destroying the economy). Most of these flex fuel cars will never even see a drop of e85.

thts it, that simple, there is no good reason, there not trying to help the environment, not trying to save you money

scam artists.

Erod

If this turns into a flame war, you're all done

originaladrian

like i said in the other thread.

i challenge someone to name JUST ONE actual benefit of using e85.

shabodah

How about lower exhaust gas temperatures and less carbon buildup?

lewisb13

Why dont you school me then son. Im going to respond to your ignorant statements as well.

1. I never once said that it couldnt work as a good fuel, either due in part to or fully to its ocatane rating, agreed?

2. You are agreeing with me when I say that the purpose is to reduce dependency on foreign oil, you just stated that other countries have done it in higher volumes SOONER than the US has. This takes me back to my original statement. If E85 was even a **** hair better than gasoline, why doesnt EVERY SINGLE CAR ON THE MOTHER ******* ROAD run E85?

Stetson

iTrader: (1)

You get worse gas mileage with e85. The only thing that was good about it was when gas was 4.50/gallon, e85 was like 1.90/gallon. now they are the same price, so i see no point.

lewisb13

What was good about it even then? Please read my first post. First thing you do is DOUBLE the cost of E85 to be comparable to regular gas.

shabodah

First off, I'm one of the older guys on this site, my family has been in the automotive business for thirty years, I've been a service manager for seven years, and my best friend is one of the foremost chemists in the world.

1.- Agreed.

2.- Reducing American dependency on foreign oil is definately one purpose of using e85, and yes, the US as been way behind the game due mostly to cronyism in politics.

Just to further my position, I am completely against widespread corn growing for e85, for cattle consumption, and for human consumption. It does make a nice treat from time to time, though.

To those above, fuel economy on E85 does NOT drop by half. Thus, doubling your numbers is not correct. Thirty percent less has been a tried and true mathmatical formula for a lot of gasoline designed engines running on e85 when converted properly.

lewisb13

Heres where Im getting 50% from.....

"Currently E85 is about 5-10% less expensive in most areas.[6] More than 20 fueling stations across the Midwest are selling E85 at the same as gasoline.[7] E85 also gets less MPG, at least in flex fuel vehicles. In one test, a Chevy Tahoe flex-fuel vehicle averaged 18 MPG [U.S. gallons] for gasoline, and 13 MPG for E85, or 28% fewer MPG than gasoline. In that test, the cost of gas averaged $3.42, while the cost for E85 averaged $3.09, or 90% the cost of gasoline.[8][9] In another test, however, a fleet of Ford Tauruses averaged only about 6% fewer miles per gallon in the ethanol-based vehicles as compared to traditional, gas-powered Tauruses"

30% less MPG while only being 10% cheaper gets you to 40%. If we want to get down to the nitty gritty we can talk about the cost of producing a higher compression engine (such as the Ford Taurus) capable of burning E85 and the # of gallons of gasoline it takes to produce 1 gallon of E85. You get the picture.....

shabodah

Your math is wrong here. If the fuel is 10% less in cost, but gets 30% less fuel economy (in worse case scenarios), you don't add those two percentages together to get 40%. Just to show some simple math, we'll use $1 as the cost of a gallon of gas and $.90 as the cost of a gallon of e85. We'll also assume the vehicle in question gets 20mpg on gasoline, which would net us 14mpg on e85, correct? Thus, it would take 1.42 gallons of e85 to go the distance one gallon of gasoline in this case. 1.42 gallons of e85 (1.42 x.90) is $1.28 (rounded up), or 28% percent more, not 40% nor 50%.

Furthermore, all the examples people use for water and gasoline consumption to produce e85 have been trumped up bs.

You can produce many products many different ways, and you do not need gasoline to produce ethanol at all.

However, the current epidemic of corn growth in the US is terrible for the economy, the environment, the peoples' health, and ethanol as a fuel in general.

In Ford's own testing, the non-FFV taurus got better fuel economy than the FFV taurus did. Strange, isn't it?

rnjmur

Pros to using E85 -

1. Reduce dependancy on foreign oil.
2. Reduce carbon footprint (yay for buzz words!)
3. Octane rating is higher (about 100) than regular gasoline.

Cons to using E85 -

1. E85 has much less power potenital than gasoline. 27% less.
2. E85 takes 35% more fuel to run at stoich (9.7:1 VS. 14.7:1)
3. Ethanol has to come from corn crop reducing food resources.

lewisb13

They using E85 in the combines, work trucks, and plows?

shabodah

Despite what people want to think, the theoretical amount of BTUs a fuel contains does not determine the efficiency in utilizing those BTUs. Many other factors, including octane, however, do.

Ethanol does NOT have to come from corn crop, and SHOULD NOT be coming from corn crop. Corn was a good way to start the process, as we were discarding millions of bushels a year because there IS NOT FOOD SHORTAGE in the US, and no one is willing to ship the excess food to the places it is needed (as this is far more costly than trying to grow food in those places or reducing overpopulation issues).

There is no reason why they shouldn't be. However, even in cases where ethanol plays no role in fueling the work vehicles involved, the majority of those vehicles are diesels. Biodiesel development goes hand in hand with ethanol development. Last I checked, diesel fuel was also being used to transport gasoline accross the country as well as farm for wheat, barley, oats, etc, etc.

roadrage06

hahahaha

this thread is great.

more people need to be told point blank they are retarded and to sotp posting.

good post OP, but it's probably going to get locked sooner or later.

ViLerocker

The answer is no, but that's because those machines are diesel They can however use biodiesel in them, but I'll get to my real point. Ethanol and E85 are worse for the enviroment than gasoline by a long shot. Take it from someone who has been in contact with research end of it (horticulture major...professors currently on grant from the government to research ethynol). They are not the green solution people have painted them to be. There are types of ethanol currently being researched involving things like Switchgrass (a prarie grass) that deliver good ratios on the power that goes into producing the fuel vs overall power output it generates. BUT the current corn based ethynols currently take far more inputs and fuel to produce than it actually puts out. It requires pesticides, the work tilling the crops, and a buttload of nitrogen (fertilizer). Whereas oil takes much less in comparison and using oil will not spike world food prices like using mass quantities of E85. Sorry guys, but E85 is doing nothing but helping the agriculture lobby in Washington because it is not the answer.

lewisb13

<---- Degreed and seasoned engineer who agrees, wholeheartedly. I was being sarcastic with my post that you were responding to.

shabodah

As I said before, Ethanol is not the problem, Corn is.

Corn is a huge problem on multiple levels. As a ford source it is one of the least efficient crops to grow, has very few nutrients, and is depleting our soils. Furthermore, grass fed cattle are far healthier than corn fed cattle, and rice fed people are healthier than corn fed people. Even further against corn, is all the corn based "food products" that are made from corn that are absolutely horrible for health reasons.

ralliartist

I got a question, what about it being a really cold and high octane fuel, and the people converting are just doing it for performance reason only? I know I've talked to steigemier and he even said that converting to e85 might be so beneficial that we could ditch our cooling system in the LSJ's for a a higher flowing system since the e85 would be enough to cool the intake charge. I've also seen plenty of cars local that converted to e85 and picked up quite a bit of power.

rnjmur

If you were to go with E85 simply for performance, and built a car especially to get performance gains by using E85, I could definately see it as beneficial. It just isn't a good fuel for everyday driving.

lewisb13

If this dude is building a drag-only car I could see it, but why run E85? Why not run full ethanol? See, it just doesnt make sense once again.